AI Fleet’s Solution To Trucker Shortage Is Based On A Better Lifestyle

The American Trucking Association says the industry is about 80,000 drivers short to “optimally meet current freight demand.” The trade organization says the shortage pre-dates the Covid-19 pandemic but only grew more severe after it started.

In a report titled “Supply Chain Watch,” the ATA attributes the shortage to factors such as retirements in an aging workforce, a high number of current and prospective drivers failing drug tests and a small percentage of female drivers.

But Marc El Khoury, a trucking industry veteran, boils it down to two factors. “Having worked in trucking we know why turnover happens—not paid enough, not home enough,” he told Forbes.com.

That’s why he and his partners created AI Fleet a little over a year ago. Based in Austin, Texas the small, but growing, trucking company is all about attracting and retaining drivers, especially women, by improving their pay and lifestyle.

It starts, explained El Khoury, by eliminating inefficiencies such as time-wasting waits to load and unload trucks, boosting pay, and customizing routes and loads.

“Truck drivers spend 50% of their time waiting. So if you increase utilization by 10% potentially the driver shortage goes away,” El Khoury said.

A key element is proprietary technology developed by AI Fleet.

“We’ve created what we call a Human Centric algorithm that allows us to select loads based on specific drivers’ preferences and what allows drivers to arrive at the pickup and delivery on time, arrive home on time and utilize the assets,” El Khoury said. “We don’t guarantee drivers will be home every day, we do guarantee drivers will be home for their weekend.”

That weekend home guarantee is one reason AI Fleet is attracting more female drivers, El Khoury said. Of the roughly 35 drivers in its workforce, about a third are women for whom weekends home with their families are a high priority. Another factor is addressing the concern female drivers have for their overnight safety by offering free daily parking and a safe place to park at night.

As for boosting pay, AI Drivers work on a salary rather than get paid by the load— $1,300 a week, which El Khoury said is about 30% higher than the industry average. Factor in a percentage of the revenue the truck earns or mileage and that can increase to about $2,000 weekly or more than $100,000 a year, higher than the industry average.

Since 2019, the average weekly pay for long-haul truckers has increased 25% according to the ATA. The median salary for a truckload driver working a national, irregular route is more than $53,000 while the average private fleet driver earns more than $86,000 annually.

AI Fleet is able to pay more because it earns more per load by reducing wait times and more astute load selection.

“We don’t think everyone else is evil and think everybody else doesn’t want to pay their drivers. We just know they cannot because if your truck makes $4,000 per week and you have to pay for the truck, for the insurance, for the fuel for the driver, there’s not much left for your driver or office,” said El Khoury. “When your truck makes $6,000, $7,000 and $8,000 a week that is when we can really start changing how trucking is really done.”

AI Fleet trucks run routes across the U.S. out of yards mainly located in the Fort Worth, Texas area. Still early in its existence, the company is hiring all positions but are “very selective,” El Khoury said. Driver jobs are open only to those with experience.

Indeed, amid the overall driver shortage, El Khoury expects to have no shortage of applications to get in the cabs of AI Fleet’s rigs because “we have a culture obsessed with driver happiness.”